Nothing is worth looking at
which is seen either too obviously or with too much difficulty. Nothing
is worth doing or well done which is not done fairly easily, and some
little deficiency of effort is more pardonable than any very perceptible
excess, for virtue has ever erred on the side of self-indulgence rather
than of asceticism.
According to Buffon, then--as also according to Dr. Darwin, who was just
such another practical and genial thinker, and who was distinctly a pupil
of Buffon, though a most intelligent and original one--if an organ after
a reasonable amount of inspection appeared to be useless, it was to be
called useless without more ado, and theories were to be ordered out of
court if they were troublesome. In like manner, if animals breed freely
_inter se_ before our eyes, as for example the horse and ass, the fact
was to be noted, but no animals were to be classed as capable of
interbreeding until they had asserted their right to such classification
by breeding with tolerable certainty. If, again, an animal looked as if
it felt, that is to say, if it moved about pretty quickly or made a
noise, it must be held to feel; if it did neither of these things it did
not look as if it felt, and therefore it must be said not to feel. _De
non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est lex_ was one of the chief
axioms of their philosophy; no writers have had a greater horror of
mystery or of ideas that have not become so mastered as to be, or to have
been, superficial.
Pages:
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166